"I'm just going to write because I can't help it."- Charlotte Brontë


Sunday, November 14, 2010

Not Sci-Fi

I was sooo looking forward to this week’s Thursday night movie, as I do any upcoming SF film, but I’ve now filed it in the ‘time-I’ll-never-get-back’ folder of life. This is the kind of movie that some people will use as ammunition when they bag SF.

Whilst watching this awfulness, most of my thoughts fell into these categories:

1-A plot would have been good.
2-Internal logic would have been good.
3-There’s a reason these movies usually have a scientist or a journo or soldier as the main protagonist. A few brain cells and/or the ability to decide on a course of action makes the journey much more bearable for the audience.
4-Where are my Independance Day / War of the Worlds (original version) / Matrix DVDs? I need to watch them again to sluice all these ripped-off scenes from my head.
5-Bring back Ripley, pleeeeease! Female characters don’t all have to be Amazons, but they certainly shouldn’t ALL be unreasonable, hysterical, sooky wife and/or slut stereotypes constantly spouting ‘I-told-you-so’ and throwing tantrums when the blokes don’t take care of an alien invasion, like right now!

The ending is brain bogglingly stupid, but we did enjoy tearing apart on the way home afterwards. Maybe that makes it a 'so-bad-it's-good' film. Basically, as far as I'm concerned, the trailer was better.

For maximum viewing pleasure, you should approach this movie not as a science fiction film, but as a screamer flick, with psycho aliens instead of a chainsaw wielding nutter mindlessly cutting a swathe through a flock of annoying, clueless adolescent caricatures. That way, you’ll probably enjoy it more than I did.

No comments: